Who is running Russia? Suddenly the conventional wisdom is that the country has been quietly taken over by a "party of war" representing the former KGB and Soviet military-industrial complex, a group that has exerted sufficient influence on President Boris Yeltsin to make him desert his former reformist allies and abandon the democratic path.


If so, quite how this came about and where Yeltsin himself stands is still a matter for speculation. But it is clear that the war in Chechnya did not mark the beginning of this process so much as illustrate that it was already firmly underway. The influence of the democrats over Kremlin decisions had been declining since late summer.


As for the president himself, so little has been seen of him in recent weeks as to make it virtually impossible to say whether he remains in control or not. Some commentators have said he is still calling the shots, but purely on the basis of advice given him by his tight inner circle of hardliners, headed by his chief bodyguard Alexander Korzhakov, whose links with Yeltsin go back to the president's days as Communist Party boss in Sverdlovsk. Korzhakov's main partner in this scenario is Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets, chief representative of the military-industrial lobby.


Others believe it has already gone further, that a "velvet coup" has already taken place. According to this theory, the inner circle has assumed control, merely keeping Yeltsin on as a figurehead to provide them with a notional legitimacy until the time comes to forestall scheduled presidential elections in June next year.


The fact that Yeltsin has appeared twice on television in the last few days to announce an end to the bombing of Grozny only for his order to be ignored on both occasions lends some credence to this theory. But it could just as well mean that Yeltsin no longer cares what he says. For Soviet leaders, after all, lying to the public was scarcely a high-risk venture.


Either way, there are already sufficient doubts both inside and outside Russia about Yeltsin's role for major decisions to be affected. In the past, the survival of Russian democracy was often equated with Yeltsin's own survival, and while many supporters of the reform process had their reservations about him personally, they were willing to guarantee their support.


Now Russia's main backers in the West, as well as major international institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, are left as confused as the hapless democrats in the State Duma. Unless Yeltsin can reassert himself and regain the confidence of such allies at home and abroad, all his achievements of the last few years will come to nothing.